


Anthophobia

by sprucewoodcottage (ironmermaidens)



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Jealousy, Mild canon divergence, Near Death Experiences, feelings of inadequency, when your lungs are full of flowers and also you are an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25170220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmermaidens/pseuds/sprucewoodcottage
Summary: Evil X is jealous of Xisuma. He's jealous of Xisuma's friends. He wants friends too. He wants them so badly it makes his lungs burn.Evil X isnotafraid of flowers, but if he was could you really blame him?
Comments: 35
Kudos: 243





	Anthophobia

It starts before he's even joined the server. On the outside looking in, Evil X sees Xisuma and his friends working and playing, and he feels a tickle in his throat. He coughs, and something comes up. A single flower petal. Evil X feels a strange lack of air in his lungs at the sight, like there isn't as much space in them as there's supposed to be, but he shakes the feeling off, and it goes away, for a time.

It's not that he's jealous, he tells himself as he puts Xisuma under a spell to destroy the server. He just hates this stupid server and hates the stupid hermits.

It's easy to believe that's true as Xisuma ruins his friends’ projects, as Evil X feels the absolute joy of another's despair. Not exactly what he had hoped Xisuma would do, but it's still satisfying to hear the other hermits shouting at him in dismay as they witness their hard work destroyed.

Until Biffa, of course. Until that stupid android actually likes how Xisuma's messed his stuff up. Until Xisuma and Biffa are swimming in Biffa's Bowl 2.0 and laughing and Evil X's lungs feel too small, too crowded again and there's a tickle in his throat and he's coughing up more flower petals and he hates it and he hates the hermits and he especially hates Xisuma. 

He decides to take matters into his own hands, summons a few dragons and washes his hands of the whole ordeal, tries to put the entire thing behind him. But things couldn't be that easy, could they?

Xisuma fixes the server, fixes all the builds he destroyed, even fixes Biffa's build despite the positive reaction he'd received for that mess.

And so it goes. On the outside looking in, Evil X sees Xisuma and his friends working and playing, and he feels a tickle in his throat. He coughs, feels something come up. He swallows it back down and ignores the way his lungs burn.

Evil X watches the seasons and he watches Xisuma's friends and he coughs up flowers every time he hears them laugh. A shower of pale allium petals when he hears Stress's giggles. Flat, rich red poppies when Tango and Impulse laugh until there's tears in their eyes. Sunflower petals as he listens to Mumbo and Iskall throw jokes back and forth. It hurts to breathe, like he's been laughing right alongside them, but he hasn't been laughing. The sight of the wilting flower petals scattered across the ground makes him feel sick. The last thing he wants to do is laugh.

He thinks if he puts an end to the hermits, it might put an end to the flowers, an end to the tight feeling in his chest, the shortness of breath, the painful way his heart thumps against his ribs.

He's so distracted by the flowers, by the tight feeling in his chest, the shortness of breath, the thumping of his heart, he falls into his own trap.

At least from this pit in the ground he can't see what the hermits are doing. He can almost breathe down here, can almost forget about the flowers until his mind wanders, wonders what's going on up above him, what kind of fun the hermits might be having together while he's trapped in this hole. He wonders what Doc and Etho are building together, wonders whether Cleo has formed an alliance with any other hermits. He finds himself doubling over and coughing up roses and peonies into the lava pool beside him, the petals burning up in a flash of flames.

He tries to focus on how he'll destroy the hermits when he's free, and not on the growing piles of tulip petals and daisies around him, or how choked he always feels now, or way his spit is tinted red even when the petals he's coughing up are blue.

__

When Evil X finally arrives in season five he tries to forget about the flowers. He tries to grab onto his anger, his spite, his hatred and let it fuel him, let it burn the petals before they've even formed in his lungs. He doesn't count on Xisuma's latest project being some sort of beautification. He doesn't count on the bouquet of tulips in his hands. 

Evil X freezes in his tracks.

He coughs, swallows down the clusters of tiny lilac petals that come up with it, and says, "I'm here to kill you."

"Okay... What's stopping you?" Xisuma asks. Evil X's eyes are locked on the tulips. The pointed petals are attached to the stem forming a goblet shape, not scattered across a ground, not sitting heavy like lead in his belly, but the sight of them makes him feel ill nonetheless. Xisuma chortles and holds the bouquet out, making Evil X flinch. "Flowers?! You're afraid of flowers?"

"No," Evil X protests, choking on the word, and the lilacs in his throat. He coughs again, the lilac petals escaping in a burst into his helmet this time. He turns away from Xisuma, his face and lungs burning equally hot, the air in his helmet stifling with the perfumey scent of flowers just under his nose, but he refuses to take it off where Xisuma can see, can comment, can make fun of him for this bizarre weakness. 

Instead of killing Xisuma, he runs away.

Evil X finds a secluded spot on the server and when he's sure he's alone he releases the hermetic seal on his helmet and pulls it off. He falls to his hands and knees and he coughs and coughs and coughs until he's sure he's coughed up a dozen panicles worth of lilac petals. He struggles to catch his breath. He doesn't have the energy to move. He curls up on his side and closes his eyes. 

The next time he opens them Xisuma's kneeling before him, the eyes behind his visor full of concern, and his hands empty of the tulips that drove Evil X away in the first place. Evil X jerks to a sitting position and glares, presses his lips together against the tickling in his throat and a mounting urge to cough. He wonders how much more his lungs can take before he's coughing them up too. 

"Are you alright?" Xisuma asks. Evil X blinks at him. He frowns.

"Fine," He grinds out from behind his teeth. He glances past Xisuma, at the lilac petals littering the ground behind him, at his helmet even beyond that. He wishes it were on his head, not sitting on its side behind Xisuma. 

Xisuma doesn't look convinced, but Evil X doesn't much care. He had no interest in convincing Xisuma of anything. He just wanted Xisuma gone, forever. 

"...I'm sorry for earlier," Xisuma says, and Evil X finds himself blinking again. He hadn't expected that from Xisuma. Xisuma glances at the petals on the ground. "I hadn't realized how... serious your phobia was."

"It's not a phobia," Evil X mumbles, but he knows it's a pointless argument. Xisuma wouldn't believe him, not even if he knew why seeing flowers left Evil X so unsettled.

"You know, Evil X," Xisuma says. "It's okay to be scared of things."

"'m not scared," Evil X huffs, casting his eyes at the ground. His belly does an odd flip flop at Xisuma's gentle tone. It's the sort of tone he'd use for a friend, not an enemy. Not Evil X. Yet here he was, speaking gently to Evil X like he was just another one of the hermits. 

The air is stolen from him and he presses a hand over his mouth, coughing into it, keeping the little lilac petals trapped behind his lips until his lungs stop spasming long enough to swallow the evidence of his ailment down. Xisuma puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and the burning returns to Evil X's heart and lungs. "Evil X, are you ill?"

"I'm not," Evil X says, shoving Xisuma's hand away and standing abruptly. "I'm not sick, I'm not scared, _it's not a phobia._ "

Before Xisuma can say anything more Evil X stomps past him, scooping up his helmet and donning it, ignoring the faint smell of lilac that lingers in it. "Leave me alone. Or I'll kill you. I mean it."

"Now hold on—" Xisuma starts, but Evil X doesn't hear what he follows those words with. He leaves in a huff and thinks about anything but the brief kindness Xisuma showed him.

__

Except it's all he can think about, that kindness. It consumes him for months, eats up the air in his lungs and the blood in his heart until he feels faint. 

He sways on his feet. Hands on his shoulders keep him from toppling over entirely.

"Whoa there," A voice says. "Are you alright, citizen?"

Evil X turns and blinks at the sight of golden blond hair and a pink mask. "...Who're you...?"

"Why, I'm Wormman!" The masked man says, puffing up his chest proudly.

Evil X blinks again, and manages to get out a "Hnnwho...?" before the feeling of faintness overwhelms him entirely and his vision goes black. 

Evil X awakens on a bed in a small and sad room. Almost as sad as his own dirt hut he'd been hiding away in. 

"You're awake!" 

Evil X turns and is greeted by the same pink mask as before. Wormman grins at him. "You gave me quite the scare, citizen!"

"Where'm I...?" Evil X says, pressing his palms into his eye sockets with a groan. His head feels like whatever plants had taken root in his lungs had grown up into his skull, wrapped vines around his optic nerves. He's fairly certain it's just a regular headache. Or at least he hopes it is. 

"You're in the worm cave," Wormman says. "Are you alright, there?"

"Fine..." Evil X groans, pushing himself up into a sitting position. It hurts his chest, and he wheezes softly, until he feels the same hands from earlier helping him sit up.

"Got a case of asthma there, aye?" Wormman says. Evil X gives him a blank look.

"What," he says.

"You seem to be having a spot of trouble breathing, is all!"

"Uh," Evil X says. "...Sure."

"Well, I'm sure I have _something_ around here that can help with that!" Wormman says, turning to a nearby chest and digging into it. Evil X's ribs feel constricted, and his throat tickles. He coughs, forgetting for a moment the consequences of that action, and ends up with a dozen blue orchid petals on his lap. "Aha!"

Wormman turns back to Evil X, triumphantly brandishing an inhaler in his hand, his enthusiasm wavering slightly when he sees the flower petals scattered across his bed, across Evil X, and across the floorboards beneath his feet. "Um... Where—"

"I ate them," Evil X says, cutting Wormman off before he can finish the sentence. His face feels like it's on fire at the silly lie, but somehow it feels better than the truth. 

"You... ate them?" Wormman asks, grimacing.

"Yes," Evil X says, his cheeks going even redder. "They tasted horrible. That's why I spit them out."

"...Allllrighty," Wormman says, shaking himself out of whatever state Evil X's confession left him in. He smiles again. "Anyway! Here! This may help with that nasty little wheeze of yours."

He holds the inhaler out to Evil X, who takes it from Wormman as if he were being offered a wiggling squid tentacle.

"Thanks..." He says. Wormman stares, his pearly whites still shining in a wide, expectant smile. Evil X stares back, wonders how long Wormman can go without blinking, then decides to show him mercy and brings the inhaler up to his mouth. He takes a puff, and to his relief Wormman finally blinks, his smile widening into the grin he wore before. Even more relieving was the way the pressure in his chest seemed to ease ever so marginally. Maybe Wormman was on to something.

"There! How're your lungs feeling now, my friend?" Wormman says, and in an instant the pressure returns sevenfold. Evil X can't help the coughing fit that follows, nor the shower of orchid petals that falls to the floor along with it. Wormman recoils, and it only makes Evil X cough even harder. He desperately brings the inhaler back to his mouth, hoping another puff might stop this fit he finds his lungs in.

"Goodness gracious!" Wormman says. "Just how many of those flowers did you eat?!"

"Not—" Cough. "Many—" Hack. "One or—" Hack, hack, cough. "two, maybe." Evil X wheezes, his eyes fixated on a point somewhere between Wormman's boots, just beyond the growing pile of petals. He tries to empty his mind, and hopes it will similarly empty his lungs.

"Well, I'd advise against it in the future," Wormman says, and Evil X glances up with an unimpressed sneer. Wormman responds with a charming smile that makes Evil X's lungs burn.

"What's your name, citizen?"

Evil X waits a moment, long enough to decide whether he can make it through a simple introduction without another coughing fit, before he responds. "Evil Xisuma."

"What an interesting name!" Wormman remarks. Evil X resists the urge to roll his eyes. Wormman thrusts a hand in his face before he can say anything more, and he blinks at it. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Evil Xisuma."

Something twists around Evil X's heart at the genuine happiness he hears in Wormman's voice. Hesitantly, he takes Wormman's hand and shakes it.

"Say, have you ever thought about being the sidekick to a dashing hero?"

__

The flowers in his lungs wither and die, wilted petals expelled on hacking coughs that grow less frequent and less severe, until one day he realizes he can breathe again. He's Wormman's sidekick, but more importantly, he's Wormman's friend. He feels a pleasant warmth in his chest at the thought. 

He stops trying to destroy the server. He even makes amends with Xisuma, who courteously says nothing about lilacs when he does. He's happy.

Until he isn't anymore. Until Wormman isn't Wormman anymore. Until he's alone in season five, and everyone else has moved on to season six.

Evil X feels a tickle in his throat.

__

He hates the season six server. He hates Xisuma and Zedaph and the rest of hermits. He especially hates Grian. He hates how personable he is, hates how everyone loves him. He hates his stupid game of tag. He hates that he's been replaced so quickly, so easily. He thought he was finally friends with the hermits but he was wrong. Evil X has never wanted to destroy Hermitcraft more. He coughs, and whole dandelion heads come up with it. 

He stops wearing his helmet when the smell of flowers becomes too much, the constant removal of petals a hassle. He avoids the hermits, because it's the only way to keep them from witnessing the trail of bloody flowers he leaves in his wake.

When he finds the lever in the cave some part of him knows it's a trap. Xisuma wasn't this stupid. But a more desperate part of him reaches out and takes the handle, yanks it down hard enough he nearly snaps it in two. A dropper activates and something hits him square in the face, making him stumble back and fall on his behind with a yelp. It's not so easy to catch his breath with lungs full of twisting vines and thorns and leaves, but when he finally does he picks the offending object up, sneering as he realizes it's Grian's tag.

"I can't believe you fell for that!" A familiar voice says, chortling so obnoxiously cheerfully that Evil X growls. He clambers to his feet, the tag clenched in a shaky fist, and his face hot with anger. He can only see Xisuma's eyes behind his tinted visor, but they crinkle with a smile. "Tag! You're it!"

"I don't want to play your stupid game," Evil X huffs. He feels so out of breath from the simple act of standing up. He feels like an animal cornered on this tiny island in the middle of a lake. He wants to be anywhere but here.

"Oh come on, that's not very sporting," Xisuma protests, that annoying cheer still present in his voice, as if he didn't understand the severity of just how much Evil X hated him right now. He clenches his fist tighter around the tag, feeling the cardstock bend and crumple in his grip before throwing it in Xisuma's face. It bounces off his visor, and the smile drops from Xisuma's eyes as he blinks.

"I said I don't want to play your stupid game!" Evil X shouts, shoving Xisuma into the lake before a spasm in his chest drops him to his knees. He coughs and coughs and coughs, lilacs and dandelions and orchids and blood spilling out of him as he does. His eyes sting from pain as thorny roses gouge his throat, his head swimming from lack of oxygen. He feels a hand on his shoulder, something wet soaking through the cloth of his sleeve, and he tries to shake it off. "Get—" Cough. "Off!

He slaps at the hand again and this time it retracts, though he can feel Xisuma watching him.

"Evil X—"

"Shut up!" Evil X shouts, another coughing fit seizing his lungs as soon as he does, poppies and daisies and alliums fluttering to the ground. He almost thinks it's funny how the white daisies and purple alliums are stained as red as the poppies with his blood. Xisuma doesn't speak. When Evil X has caught his breath again he adds, "Don't. Say. Anything."

Xisuma doesn't. His chest aches at the silence. Evil X pushes himself back up to his feet, careful to avoid looking at Xisuma, still kneeling before the bloody flower petals scattered across the ground. He slings his Elytra over his shoulders, wheezing softly as he does. The weight pressed on his already weakened lungs and he feels dizzy. He pulls out his rockets and without another word takes off into the sky.

Xisuma doesn't follow.

__

Something changes. Something was different. For weeks Evil X lays in bed, too dizzy and too breathless to stand, lays on his side because laying on his back or his stomach made him feel like he was suffocating. It helps, until suddenly his lungs burn again, burn as if touched by rot itself. As if he had been withered.

He coughs and when he coughs, petals as black as pitch come up, and his lungs still feel rotten. 

Desperation drives him out of his dirt hovel, desperation and fear, because he knows there is no cure to be found for his condition. There was only prolonging the inevitable. How sad. How pathetic. He's driven out of his isolation by something he could no longer deny. He was dying.

Evil X doesn't want to die.

He stumbles through the shopping district, breath coming in heavy huffs and puffs past lips numbed by black rose petals. He doesn't know what he's looking for. He doesn't know where he would find it.

"Evil Xisuma!" He hears called from behind. He might know who that voice belongs to. It reminds him of blue orchid petals and pink masks. He coughs and the only color he sees is black. His lungs burn. 

"Evil X?" Another voice says, and it sounds like poppies. His eyes sting with tears and he shuts them, focuses on breathing, on what little air he can fit in his crowded lungs, ignores the pain that follows every intake of air. He feels a hand on his shoulder and for once he makes no effort to remove it.

"Evil X, are you okay?"

He's not okay. 

"Evil Xisuma?"

__

He awakens in an unfamiliar bed to voices that sound like lilacs and dandelions and sunflowers and peonies. He feels a hand against his forehead, brushing back his hair, and he doesn't fight it.

"Evil X?" The voice like lilacs says. He opens his eyes to Xisuma's face, the worried crease of his brow and the severe curve of his frown unobscured by his helmet. "Evil X, who is it?"

"Hnnmm...?" Evil X manages to get out before a burning in his throat stops him. 

"The flowers, Evil X, who is it?" Xisuma says again. "Please."

Evil X shrinks away from Xisuma's touch with a whimper. "Nno... no one..."

"Evil X, please," the dandelion voice says, and he glances away from Xisuma to see Grian's own worried face. "We're just trying to help."

"'s... 's no one..." he says. 

"You're full of it!" The sunflower voice exclaims as Iskall pushes his way forward. "Do you even get the danger you're in here?"

Evil X groans, and the groan turns into a cough. Xisuma recoils away as black rose petals and blood spray onto his bedsheets.

"He's right," agrees the peony voice belonging to Cleo. "No one gets hanahaki for no reason, Evil X."

"You're dying, Evil X," Xisuma says, his hand returning to Evil X's head when the coughing subsides, his fingers running through Evil X's hair gently. "You'll die if you don't tell us who is it. Please just tell us."

"'s no one," he repeats. "'s no one... No... No one..."

"Is it... more than one person, Evil X...?" Grian asks. 

Evil X grasps the edge of the blanket and tugs up with a whimper. What was the point of answering? He would die either way, wouldn't he? "'s... 's not... not fair..."

"What isn't fair, Evil X?" Xisuma asks, his fingers still carding his hair comfortingly. He feels insulted by it, but he can't bare to let Xisuma stop. 

"Y-you... you have friends... why... not me?" He says, his voice low and raspy. He gasps for breath, but his heart keeps racing as if the oxygen wasn't reaching it. His vision is dark around the edges and he closes his eyes against a dizzy spell—or maybe he doesn't. It's hard to tell.

"Friends...?" The fingers stop moving and he whimpers desperately again. "Is that why...?"

He shakes his head and pulls away from Xisuma, coughing when the motion puts extra pressure on his lungs. He can feel the wither rose petals in his windpipe, can feel them on his tongue even as he tastes a numbing nothingness. Xisuma's hand moves from his hair to his cheek, his fingers pressing into Evil X's cheekbone and aching jaw.

"Evil X, look at me!" Xisuma says, a frantic tone that gets him to crack open his eyes. Everything is blurry, but Xisuma is close enough for Evil X to see the violet of his irises, to make out the crease of his brow, to even see where Xisuma had missed when trimming his beard. 

"Evil X, listen. You have friends, alright?" Xisuma says. "We're your friends! Of course we're your friends. Why did you think we weren't?"

"Y-you... hate me..." Evil X rasps. "You... should hate me..."

"I don't hate you," Xisuma says, a chortle so unlike usual passing his lips. It's sad, hopeless. Fearful. It sounds nothing like the cheerful laugh Evil X is used to. "I... I'm sorry that I let you think that. I don't hate you, Evil X. I don't."

"Y-you... replaced me," Evil X argues, glancing in the direction of the red blur where Grian was standing. 

"No! No of course not," Xisuma says. "We can be Grian's friend and yours, too. Grian can be your friend."

Evil X makes a noise in his throat that turns into another cough. Why would Grian want to be his friend now? 

"Hey," Xisuma says quietly. "There's still time to play Tag, if you want."

Evil X feels tears in his eyes and nods minutely. He wishes he hadn't run away the first time. Why had he done that? Why did he push Xisuma away? It was his own fault he was dying. He thinks he might deserve this.

He feels Xisuma grab his hand and press something into it. Crumpled cardstock. "Tag. You're it."

He holds it as tightly as his weak fingers can grasp it, nearly laughs as, without a word, the other three hermits shuffle closer. Instead he coughs, coughs and hacks until he feels like he's broken a rib from coughing so much, and he's sure the sheets are stained red with blood. He feels hands on him keeping him steady, lifting his arm to open his airways until he catches what little breath his lungs can hold. He reaches out and gently slaps the tag against a red sweater.

"Tag..." He gasps, another hacking laugh forcing it's way up his throat at Grian's indignant squeak. He wishes he could see the look on Grian's face.

He hears a sigh, a fondness that makes more tears spring to his eyes. He imagines Grian must be smiling to make a sound like that. "Good game, Evil X."

"Evil X?"

He lets his eyes slip closed, at least he thinks he does—or maybe he already did. 

"Evil Xisuma!"

He'll just rest his eyes a minute. Just for a minute. 

__

It's a bright day in the shopping district. The sun shines warmly across the island, and the flowers bloom brightly. It's the perfect day to check shop profits, and no one wastes a second of it. Zedaph is no exception. 

Quartz, Warts, and Shorts wasn't exactly a money maker, but it saw the occasional sale, and the occasional need for restock. He has his head buried in one of the chests when the sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts him. He bangs his head on the lid with a muffled yelp and turns to the entrance with a befuddled look.

In the doorway stands Evil X, hands wrung together, and a nervous smile on his face. He’s pale and thin, but his breath comes easy to him.

"Hi," he says. "I was wondering if maybe you... were in need of a sidekick."

Zedaph cocks his head and with a crooked smile he responds, "How about a friend?"


End file.
